ALASKA MISSILE DEFENSE EARLY BIRD WEEKLY

SAC-AK NEWS RELEASE, Fort Richardson, Alaska -- The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Program Office of the Missile Defense Agency announced today that 35 Alaskan-owned and operated businesses are currently subcontracted in various capacities as part of the GMD Test Bed construction project. The current combined value of these subcontracts exceeds $53 million, with more awards planned in the near future. The Test Bed is currently under construction at Ft. Greely near Delta Junction, and Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island in the Aleutians. The Test Bed is being developed to test, integrate and improve a wide variety of missile defense technologies now in development to defend the United States and its friends and allies against ballistic missile attack.

The following Alaskan firms are currently subcontracted for missile defense work at Ft. Greely:

Acme Fence Company – Anchorage, Aglaq Construction Enterprises – Anchorage, Alaska Inland Homes, Inc. – Fairbanks, Alaska Mechanical – Fairbanks, Arctic Structures – Palmer, Bowers Office Products, Inc. – Fairbanks, Carpenter Contracting - Delta Junction, Delta Building Supply – Delta Junction, Delta Industrial Services – Delta Junction, Delta Redi-Mix – Delta Junction, Delta Sanitation – Delta Junction, Delta Surveys – Delta Junction, Denali Fenceworks – Fairbanks, Dihthaad Global Services - Fairbanks

Dowl Engineers – Anchorage, Doyon Universal Services – Fairbanks, Family Medical Services - Delta Junction, Fred Meyer – Fairbanks, GCI – Anchorage, Great Alaska Car Company – Kenai, Grasle & Associates – Fairbanks, Halco Enterprises, Inc. – Fairbanks, Hoefler Consulting Group – Anchorage, Houston Contracting – Fairbanks, Kaleidoscope – Fairbanks, NANA Management Services – Anchorage, Northern Business Systems – Fairbanks, Olgoonik – Fairbanks, Rent-A-Can - Delta Junction

Samples Furniture – Fairbanks, Seekins Ford – Fairbanks, Unit Construction – Anchorage, University Redi Mix – Fairbanks, Watterson Construction – Anchorage, Weidner Construction – Delta Junction

SEA-BASED RADAR CONTRACT: MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY, August 2, 2002. The Boeing Co., Anaheim, Calif., is being awarded a cost-plus-award fee contract modification for development of a Sea-Based Test X-band Radar capability in support of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense Program. This effort will be accomplished in a phased approach. At this time, only Phase 1 is being executed for the reservation of the sea-based platform and preliminary design effort in the amount of $31,000,000. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The principal place of performance will be Bedford, Mass. The Missile Defense Agency is the contracting activity (HQ0006-01-C-0001).

U.S. TO TEST WITH SEA-BASED RADAR, Associated Press, August 2, 2002. The military has decided to use sea-based radar for testing a missile defense system for the United States, awarding a $31 million contract for the first phase of development. It hopes to begin missile defense testing with a sea-based platform in September 2005, said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency. “This means we’re moving forward at this time with a sea-based versus a land-based X-band radar for the Pacific Ocean testbed,” Lehner said of the contract award. However, he added that the sea-based radar did not rule out a future land-based radar that might be required at a later date for an operational system. The Sea-Based Test X-band Radar is built on a commercial platform similar to what is used for an oilrig. The contract was awarded to Boeing Co. of Anaheim, Calif., and phase one will include preliminary design and to reserve the radar platform, said a Pentagon press release. The sea-based plan will offer more flexibility because the system can be moved throughout the northern Pacific Ocean test area to support nearly all flight tests planned for the Pentagon’s long-range ground-based missile defense program in the test bed stretching from Alaska to Hawaii, Lehner said, especially to support the one planned in central Alaska for eventual defense of the United States. Overall cost of the radar is estimated at about $900 million. The later phases of the project include environmental impact analysis, fabrication and installation of platform equipment and integrating it into the test bed. The overall testbed is scheduled to begin operation in September 2004, with the radar upgrade to come a year later.

CURBS COME OFF MISSILE DEFENSE, Alaska Military Weekly. July 25, 2002. Washington- A sweeping reorganization of the U.S. Missile Defense program could reduce critical testing and financial oversight, according to a report released this week by the Project On Government Oversight. The POGO report, “Big Dreams Still Need Oversight: Missile Defense Testing and Financial Accountability Are Being Circumvented,” questions why normal checks and balances that ensure financial oversight and sound weapons testing practices should be discarded in the rush to make missile defense a reality. A “Program Direction” memorandum issued by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld January 2, which ordered far-reaching changes to the nation’s multi-billion-dollar missile defense program was the impetus for the study which led to the report. “Proclaiming missile defense a national priority, Rumsfeld reorganized and renamed the military organization overseeing the program,” the report states. “Now, a new department called the Missile Defense Agency will be responsible for the multi-tiered program, coordinating all aspects of missile defense, ranging from shorter-range advanced Patriot missiles and airborne lasers to intercontinental ballistic missiles intended to knock enemy missiles out of the sky.

While all the implications of the memo are not clear, according to the report the directive appears to give the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) unprecedented unilateral power. “It also exempts the agency director and defense contractors from long-standing acquisition statutes and regulations which ensure honest and cost-effective acquisition practices as well as objective research, development, and testing of Pentagon weapons systems,” the report states. “While we take no position, pro or con, on missile defense, we nonetheless have serious concerns that the recent missile defense program changes at the direction of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are not in the best interest of our nation’s security or the U.S. taxpayer,” said Eric Miller, senior defense investigator for POGO. Anti-missile defense groups in Alaska were quick to use the report to shore up arguments against the program. “These changes are putting Alaska in jeopardy by diverting money from Homeland Security and real security threats to an unworkable and unnecessary missile defense system,” said Steve Cleary, with Citizen Opposed To Defense Experimentation, a coalition of Alaskan groups opposing the missile defense program. “By allowing the Pentagon free reign on this project, with no oversight, not only are we dumping money down the drain, but we’re also putting our state and nation in danger.”

According to the report:

· “Under the new guidelines, the MDA will be exempt from regulations that require military commanders to set technical requirements for a new weapons system that must be met before it can be operationally tested and purchased by the Pentagon. These requirements, called Operations Requirements Documents, or ORDS, have been eliminated in favor of a less structured ‘capabilities-based’ acquisition strategy.

· “The Pentagon’s chief independent tester, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, has not been given complete access to the MDA testing documents while the weapons system is being developed. Since the Rumsfeld memo was issued, the agency has been forced to negotiate for missile defense developmental testing data on a piecemeal basis, rather than being given customary access to any and all testing data. This new way of doing business – coupled with the Bush Administration’s rush to deploy a missile system by 2004 – greatly increases the chances of deploying a flawed system before DOT&E completes rigorous operational testing.

· “The Rumsfeld memo authorizes the director of the MDA to negotiate so-called ‘other transactions’ agreements exempt defense contractors from complying with many current acquisition statutes or regulations that ensure financial transparency, including the Federal Acquisition Regulation and its Supplements and Cost Accounting Standards. “If Congress allows the sweeping changes ordered unilaterally by the Rumsfeld memo, the MDA will walk away with a blank check without going through normal channels that ensure the taxpayers buy the best possible weapons at the lowest possible price,” the report states. POGO, a politically independent, nonprofit watchdog, has been riding herd on Department of Defense budgets since its founding in 1981. The organization’s mission is to investigate and expose “systemic abuses of power, mismanagement, and subservience by the federal government to powerful special interests.” Their campaign to expose defense contractor rip-offs, such as the $7,600 coffee maker and the $1,000 wrench, ultimately led to comprehensive reforms. POGO also uncovered serious inadequacies in weapons, such as the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the Sergeant York DIVAD Air Defense Gun. As a result, the DIVAD was canceled and internal watchdogs, such as the Pentagon’s Operational Test and Evaluation Office, were created. Now, “the Department of Defense is cutting testing requirements and financial oversight of the missile defense program, one of the most technologically challenging and expensive Pentagon weapons programs ever,” the report concludes. “Denied the security of testing requirements and financial oversight protections that have traditionally been guaranteed, the nation is in danger of buying a weapons system that does not work, at an alarming cost.

RADAR TO BE BASED AT SEA; ALEUTIAN ISLAND MAY GET THE X-BAND SYSTEM EVENTUALLY SPOKESMAN SAYS, Anchorage Daily News, August 3, 2002. Washington -- The Missile Defense Agency has awarded a $31 million contract to begin developing an X-band radar that will be based on a platform at sea, rather than on Alaska's Shemya Island as originally planned. The Aleutian island, already home to an older radar, may eventually get the powerful X-band system, said Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the MDA. But the agency is first building a test bed down the Pacific Ocean, stretching from Alaska to Polynesia. An X-band on Shemya, or any other land sites MDA considered, would work only for a few of the 14 trajectories the agency would like to test, Lehner said. Land-based sites may be more useful in detecting actual enemy missiles.

"If a decision is made for an operational system, then we may well put a full-sized X-band radar in Alaska -- perhaps on Shemya, perhaps somewhere else," he said. The contract awarded this week to the Boeing Co. is for preliminary design work and to make sure a platform will be ready when needed, according to a Pentagon announcement. The platform will be like those used for offshore oil drilling, Lehner said. The total cost is estimated at $900 million. Chris Nelson, the state's coordinator for missile defense efforts, said MDA's decision to develop a sea-based radar isn't surprising. "With the emphasis now on testing, a good case could be made for putting it at sea," he said. The old radar on Shemya isn't as useful as an X-band would be, but it's still pretty powerful, Nelson said. Its gaze is fixed on the former Soviet Union. "It can pick up things from North Korea," Nelson said. "But it really doesn't look down the Pacific at all." The Missile Defense Agency is spending $85 million to upgrade it. An X-band radar would be better than Shemya's L-band system at telling the difference between a warhead, a decoy and debris. It would weigh 50,000 tons and be able to rotate 360 degrees, Lehner said.

GLOBAL NEWS BREAKS #22

MONDAY, JULY 29, 2002

AN OFFER FROM BUSH, The Times (London), July 29, 2002. Tony Blair's relations with the Bush Administration will soon encounter a difficult test in space. The Prime Minister has hitherto avoided saying whether Britain stands ready to co-operate on missile defense, on the ground that this question requires, as yet, no decision. Knowing the hostility on Labor back benches, he may even have hoped that Washington's preoccupation with the War on Terror would keep this hugely ambitious project in the pending tray. September 11 has, on the contrary, given missile defense a strong political boost. Last week Mr. Blair urged his European colleagues to suppress their carping about American "unilateralism". That means shedding prejudices about "Star Wars". The need for a shared concept of limited ballistic defense, and for a concerted effort to surmount the formidable technical challenges, is urgent. After September 11, it is hard to argue that the US is merely fantasizing about one-off attacks by rogue states or terrorist groups. The risks stemming from nuclear proliferation are of the attack itself, and of the inhibiting effect of nuclear, chemical or biological blackmail. Pentagon officials admit to hoping that contracts signed in Europe will soften political resistance to missile defense here. It would be far better if Europe, with Britain in the lead, were persuaded to co-operate by the strategic logic, and not by the jangle of gold in corporate pockets.

HANDS ACROSS THE SEA, The Economist (U.S. Edition), July 27, 2002. Just as most governments stop foreigners owning airlines on "strategic" grounds, so defense remains a nationalistic business. Cross-border deals tend to be ad hoc alliances and joint ventures rather than full mergers--much as airlines have to rely on alliances or forge code-sharing links to market each other's flights. The deal between Boeing and EADS is of this type. The two plan to co-operate on missile defense, Boeing being the lead contractor for the "ground-based interceptor" part of America's national missile-defense system. This looks to be a feather in the Europeans' cap, since EADS has been struggling to break into the American defense market as Airbus has in civil aircraft. EADS and Boeing have joined forces on missiles before: for instance, Boeing helps to market the new EADS/BAE Systems Meteor. Most deals concern marketing or subcontracting. But this week's deal is about sharing development work. For once, it seems, America is treating the Europeans as equal partners. The real motive, however, is the American government's desire to get the Europeans to warm to its controversial missile-defense system. America wants missile defense to be stretched to cover NATO's European members. One way of wearing down opposition among Europe's politicians is by demonstrating that there are jobs in it.

OVERSIGHT OF ANTI-MISSILE PROGRAM KEEPS DEFENSE CONFEREES AT ODDS, Congressional Quarterly Weekly, July 27, 2002. The most contentious item in the House-Senate conference on the annual defense authorization bill easily could be mistaken for a minor turf battle. At issue is how much detail the Pentagon should be required to give Congress about the projected costs, progress and performance of the national missile defense system. But the confrontation between conferees is actually the latest battle in the nearly 20-year ideological slugfest over missile defense. And this time, the stakes are exceedingly high for liberal critics, who stand to lose access to the type of information that has provided them with some of their most potent ammunition against the program. The Bush administration has requested $7.8 billion for missile programs in fiscal 2003. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also is insisting that Congress accept less detailed information on the program as it becomes more fluid in its long-range goals and timetables. If Rumsfeld and his congressional allies get their way, Pentagon officials could shift funds from one program to another and make other changes without going through the often lengthy process of informing Congress and receiving its nod. But a number of lawmakers are uneasy with the administration’s approach, citing Congress´ oversight responsibilities. As a result, the House and Senate versions of the bill (HR 4546) contain different approaches to the oversight question, with Senate authorizers demanding stronger reporting requirements than the House.

MISSILE AGENCY SPENDS MILLIONS FREE FROM USUAL RULES, Defense Week, July 29, 2002. Within the next decade, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency is expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in deals with America's two largest defense contractors without imposing on the firms the usual auditing and accounting rules, according to officials and documents. Under these deals, called "other transactions," the government waives practically every regulation that protects taxpayers, including strict federal accounting standards, said Robert Lieberman, the Pentagon's deputy inspector general, in an interview. The agency responds that many protections are still in place. The agency's relaxation of accounting and other rules for its biggest contractors on the costly antimissile program comes as Wall Street reels from the fallout of "creative" accounting, lack of transparency and insufficient oversight in corporate America. Spending so much money on antimissile programs that don't have to play by the same time-tested rules that apply to other programs could invite cost, schedule and performance problems in missile defense, many experts say. In a letter to a House Government Reform panel last March, Lieberman wrote: "We find this trend disturbing, as other transactions do not provide the government a number of significant protections, ensure the prudent expenditure of taxpayer dollars or prevent fraud. The traditional protections for the public trust do not exist, for the most part, with other transactions." Lieberman's letter is reproduced in a new report on missile defense by the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group. The report is titled, "Big Dreams Still Need Oversight." The antimissile agency, in a statement, said it has no plans to extend the other-transactions authority beyond the two national teams. The agency could not quantify the amount it would spend on these teams, because contract talks are underway. A spokesman said other transactions is an accepted Pentagon practice and added that the national team agreements "require the contractors to have government-approved accounting systems, maintain earned-value-management systems and provide monthly cost reports."

INSIDE THE RING, The Washington Times, July 26, 2002. Vice Adm. Timothy LaFleur said he is encouraged with the Navy's progress in building sea-based missile defenses. He outlined several scenarios for how the missile shields can be deployed: "You could have a Group of Eight [economic summit] meeting in Qatar and you send a missile-defense ship off because you don't want some rogue country to fire a missile in there, so you move a missile-defense ship off a particular city to protect it," he said. "You may have the president meeting with a group of world leaders at the U.N., so you move a ship off of New York to protect it. You may have a strike group going in to do a NEO - noncombatant evacuation [operation] - so you want to protect that force, so you move a missile-defense shield off of where they are because technology is moving in the black market, as well as the open market, and so you could get a cruise missile, short range, that needs to be defended against in all kinds of different scenarios." I think it is not just the intercontinental [missiles], but it is the shorter-range and the midrange ones that you have to be concerned about as well," said Adm. LaFleur, commander in the Navy. In the next four or five years, the Navy may deploy a missile-defense squadron with a ship deployed in a location away from U.S. shores, he said. To increase the efficiency, the missile-defense ship will use a new concept called "sea swap," the three-star admiral said. "Then we can keep a missile-defense ship forward and swap out the crews on it," he said.

TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2002

BAE JOINS GROUP OF FIRMS DEVELOPING U.S. MISSILE DEFENSE, Defense News, July 29 - August 4, 2002. The path has been cleared for BAE SYSTEMS personnel to join the U.S. national industry team working on a ballistic missile defense project, following the signing of a memorandum of understanding July 25 between the company and Boeing Co., the program leader. Asian and Australian companies are likely to be Chicago-based Boeing’s next targets for industrial participation accords, sources here say . . . Mike Rouse, BAE’s marketing director, said the company soon will join the national industry team as a subcontractor. Initially, technology will be migrated from BAE’s U.S. operations while waiting for clearance for the U.K. arm to participate. BAE SYSTEMS North America, Rockville, Md., already is involved in building the seeker for the U.S. Army’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense missile system. Rouse pointed to other technologies — such as computer systems architecture; imagery; seekers; command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; and other skills, such as kill assessment — as areas where the company could contribute . . . While the U.S. and European firms were talking up the benefits of industrial cooperation here, the political temperature was being taken locally by a Pentagon team led by David Martin, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s deputy for strategic relations. Martin visited several European capitals the week of July 22, including London, for talks on missile defense.

ISRAEL BETTER EQUIPPED TODAY TO DEAL WITH IRAQI MISSILE ATTACK, EX-DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS, Associated Press, July 29, 2002. Israel is in a much stronger position today if it had to face a renewed missile attack from Iraq, as happened in the 1991 Gulf War, a former Israeli defense minister said Monday. Moshe Arens, Israel's defense minister during the Gulf War, said Israel now has a strong missile defense system and its own spy satellite, which it previously lacked. In addition, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was less likely to initiate an attack against Israel, as he did a decade ago, Arens said . . . Israel's Arrow missile defense system, jointly developed with the United States, has performed well in tests and was now deployed countrywide, Arens said. "We today have a weapons system that has a high probability, capability, of intercepting ballistic missiles," Arens said. Other Israeli experts, however, have reservations about the system. "Hitting a bullet with a bullet is still very difficult," said Gerald Steinberg, a defense specialist at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv. "The estimation is that it would take two Arrows to hit one (Iraqi Scud missile). By increasing the number of Scuds, or putting out decoys, the enemy could exhaust the supply of Arrows." Reuven Pedatzur, a leading Israeli authority on missile defense, said that even if an Arrow hit an incoming a missile carrying a nuclear, chemical or biological warhead, the effect on the population could still be devastating. He also noted that if the Arrow hit a missile on or near the Israeli border, the fallout could land on neighboring Jordan or Syria, by Palestinians in the West Bank or Arabs in northern Israel.

AIR FORCE RESEARCH LAB LOOKING INTO ADVANCED GUIDANCE FOR BALLISTIC MISSILES, Defense Daily, July 30, 2002. The Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate is looking into advanced Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) systems designs for ballistic missiles for the Air Force and Navy in 2020 and beyond, according to a July 22 Federal Business Opportunities notice. "The technologies needed to meet the anticipated strategic navigation, guidance and control requirements of the 2020 time frame and beyond may be considered a revolutionary change from the current state of the art fielded systems," according to the notice. "These systems would satisfy the strategic requirements for the Air Force and Navy and also meet the size, weight, power and cost requirements of the precision strike initiatives." The Air Force now oversees the nation's fleet of Lockheed Martin [LMT] Minuteman III and Peacekeeper missiles, while the Navy operates the submarine launched Trident ballistic missiles by Lockheed Martin. Though funds are not now available for the effort, AFRL may make up to four contract awards for the GNC efforts, which also involve "closely related ballistic missile technologies," the notice said. The total program budget over five years is $53.2 million. Future GNC systems for advanced ballistic missile lift and re-entry systems "must perform to increasingly more demanding requirements," including affordability, higher precision, minimization of size and power, "immunity to space-like hostile environments," high mean times between failures and minimal maintenance costs, the notice said.

OPINION/LETTERS

SELLING ARROWS TO THE INDIANS, Washington Times, July 30, 2002. Now that the U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty is dead and buried, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are free to confront — cooperatively — the post-Cold War ballistic-missile threat. Coincidentally, Israel wants to sell India the Arrow ABM system we have cooperatively developed. Perhaps the Arrow is the sort of ABM system Messrs. Bush and Putin should now develop for all our allies . . . In addition to terminal defense, we and the Israelis also cooperatively developed a boost-phase ballistic-missile intercept (BPI) capability. A ballistic missile is especially vulnerable in the boost phase, shortly after launch. It ascends rather slowly for several minutes, its intensely hot rocket exhaust making it a big fat target for infrared homing missiles . . . In order to employ a UAV-based BPI system effectively, you need certain space-based assets that Israel doesn't have. We and the Russians do, and have already agreed to develop a U.S.-Russian space-based ABM early-warning system. Furthermore, Mr. Putin has offered to cooperatively develop an ABM system with NATO members that emphasize BPI. Finally, Mr. Bush declares we are going to take the war on terrorism to the enemy. That means pre-emptive strikes. The UAV-BPI ABM system is pre-emptive. Once your BPI assets have found a roguish-looking missile, you don't wait to find out what kind of warhead it's carrying. Nor do you wait to find out where it's headed. You just shoot first and ask questions later. That apparently appeals to Texans — and, of course, to Israelis. Wait a minute. The Israelis have recently sold UAVs to India. And doesn't archenemy Pakistan have ballistic missiles? And doesn't Pakistan have a few dozen nukes? You don't suppose the Israelis intend to sell the entire ABM system — including the UAV-BPI part — to India, do you? Nah.

Gordon Prather is a former national security adviser with several federal agencies, including the Defense Department. He also worked as a nuclear weapons specialist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2002

MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY CONTEMPLATING MAY 2003 AWARD FOR TARGETS PROGRAM, Defense Daily, July 31, 2002. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is contemplating an award in May next year to a prime contractor for MDA’s targets and countermeasures work, sources said yesterday. A prime contractor would oversee such work and provide the agency with better management on its test and evaluation program, which critics have charged is not representative of real world ballistic missile threats. MDA briefed contractors last week at an industry day on the proposed strategy, which may result in $400 million to $500 million a year for the winner. An industry source said yesterday, however, that that figure may be high, given that the prime contractor in the early years of the program would likely not be building hardware . . . The selection of one contractor to oversee the targets and countermeasures work is aimed at simplifying the very complex process in place today in which a variety of contracts are awarded for tasks associated with each target and countermeasures design (Defense Daily, July 15) . . . The now defunct 1972 Anti-Ballistic [Missile] Treaty with the former Soviet Union limited targets and countermeasures capabilities. Now, however, with the demise of the treaty on June 13, DoD is free to examine different basing locations for target missiles, including sea basing, and different geometries for intercepting the target missiles. The long-lead time between now and the anticipated contract award next May give the bidders more time to consider their management strategies and their teaming arrangements.

ARMS RACE IS LATEST MIDEAST POWDER KEG, Orlando Sentinel, July 28, 2002 . . . Experts warn that a growing number of countries, including Iran and Iraq, are mounting an all-out drive to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Many of the same regimes also are developing powerful, more accurate rockets to deliver the lethal munitions. Russia, China and North Korea have been only too happy to contribute their expertise and hardware to Arab nations for a price. While others play catch-up, Israel is working with the United States to maintain its technological edge with defenses such as Arrow and a laser capable of destroying small incoming missiles. The Israeli arsenal already boasts a hefty nuclear stockpile, chemical weapons, accurate long-range missiles and sophisticated spy satellites . . .The Arrow system is designed to provide Israel with a national defense against similar attacks once fully deployed. Only one of three planned Arrow batteries is in place, however, because of concerns about the health effects of the system’s radar. Israel and the United States also are working on a more exotic missile defense. An experimental laser cannon is being developed to destroy small missiles such as the truck-launched Katyusha rockets fired at Israel by militants in southern Lebanon. Extending the laser’s range and finding a mobile power source remain obstacles.

TALENT SCOLDS CARNAHAN ON MISSILE DEFENSE, Kansas City Star, July 31, 2002. U.S. Senate candidate Jim Talent took the offense on defense Tuesday, supporting a stronger missile-defense network and criticizing Sen. Jean Carnahan for votes against it. Talent held a news conference in Kansas City and toured defense component plants in Springfield, Kansas City and Sullivan, Mo. He said the United States must bolster missile shields to protect its interests abroad. Talent said he did not want to see a repeat of disasters such as the Iraqi Scud missile that killed 28 American soldiers in their barracks in Operation Desert Storm a decade ago . . . Carnahan spokesman Dan Leistikow said Carnahan voted against the missile programs because they duplicated existing projects. Ultimately she voted for defense bills that authorized the appropriations but gave the president flexibility to spend money on terrorism-related initiatives, he said. “Jim Talent is knowingly misrepresenting Senator Carnahan’s record,” Leistikow said. “She voted for the two biggest missile-defense budgets in history.”
Talent spokesman Rich Chrismer said Carnahan and other Senate Democrats supported

the bill only under a rare veto threat from President Bush. Carnahan is either for strong missile defense or against it, Chrismer said. “You can’t have it both ways,” he said.

POWELL-PAEK MEETING PROVIDES CLUE TO RESUMPTION OF DIALOGUE, Korea Times, August 1, 2002. The bilateral meeting will lead to the dispatch to Pyongyang of a U.S. delegation, headed by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, to talk with North Korean officials about crucial security issues, according to diplomatic sources . . . During the opening session of the ARF, where ministers of two Koreas and the United States, Japan and China took the podium for speeches on security on the Korean peninsula, Paek and Powell criticized each other. Paek denounced the U.S. for raising tension on the Korean peninsula through military schemes, such as the anti-terrorism campaign and missile defense. Powell hit back, saying that missile defense and anti-terror moves were purely “defensive.” On the other hand, he vowed the U.S. administration would press ahead with efforts toward dialogue with the reclusive North Korea and the provision of humanitarian assistance.

NORTH KOREA HITS OUT AT U.S., JAPAN, Korea Times, August 1, 2002. In its annual security report submitted to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the North [Korea] denounced the unilateral withdrawal by the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in the face of strong international opposition and push toward the establishment of Missile Defense with the aim of gaining military superiority. “Such coercive action of the U.S. will not only lead to the destruction of the global security structure but also ignite the arms race and consume huge human and material resources that are to be directed to economic development,” it noted.

OPINION/LETTERS

PATRIOT RAISES UNREALISTIC HOPES, Washington Times, July 31, 2002. Gordon Prather’s breathless account of the Patriot missile’s success rate during the Gulf war is reminiscent of the U.S. Army’s initial claim that 96 percent of the Iraqi Scuds had been intercepted (“Selling arrows to the Indians,” Op-Ed, yesterday). Unfortunately, he does not mention that the Army later revised this figure down to 52 percent to 25 percent and that the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that there was strong evidence only that the Patriot had destroyed 9 percent of the Scuds. The threat posed by short-range missiles is real. The advanced Patriot System (PAC-3) is a promising technology but still has significant technical hurdles to overcome. It does not serve the safety of our troops and allies to give an inflated view of its predecessor’s performance. Josh Kellar, Analyst, Federation of American Scientists, Washington.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2002

LAWMAKERS FIND INFORMATION IN KEY MDA PLANNING DOCUMENT LACKING, Inside The Pentagon, August 1, 2002. Congressional Democrats say they are disappointed with a combat capability-planning document received from the Missile Defense Agency for the Bush administration's Ballistic Missile Defense System. The lawmakers were expecting much more detail than provided in the BMDS Technical Objectives and Goals document, which a handful of them reviewed in the last two months. For some, the TOG fueled a sense of frustration over what they call a lack of useful information available to Congress in overseeing the administration's missile defense development efforts, congressional sources tell Inside the Pentagon. MDA, however, has informed lawmakers that documents describing BMDS plans and development will become more detailed over time, as the agency's ideas for the program evolve . . . In its version of the FY-03 defense authorization bill, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved provisions that its leadership says would improve oversight of missile defense programs by Congress, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the services. The panel's bill, which passed the full Senate in June, would require an annual Joint Requirements Oversight Council review of missile defense programs' cost, schedule and performance, as well as an annual operational assessment of missile defense activities by the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation.

STATE DEPARTMENT AND THE PENTAGON DISPUTE OVER ARROW TRANSFER, CDI. In a Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on July 29, two conflicting official mindsets emerged regarding Israel's proposal to sell the Arrow missile interceptor to India, setting up yet another clash between the State Department and DoD. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Vann Van Diepen worried that the sale of the missile defense technology would heighten tension between India and Pakistan and that "there would be issues that one would have to consider of that nature in deciding whether or not to go ahead with such a sale." This contrasted with Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Marshall Billingslea's assertion that since missile defenses are an "inherently stabilizing concept," the United States should support the sale. The Pentagon co-developed the Arrow missile interceptor with Israel and thus has to approve the sale. Complicating matters further are Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) concerns. The Arrow can propel a 500 kilogram payload over 300 kilometers, making it a Category 1 - or most sensitive - system that ostensibly should not be proliferated under the MTCR's non-legally binding guidelines. Israel has already sold India the Green Pines radar it created for the Arrow interceptor. Global Security Newswire, July 30, 2002

JAPAN FACES TOUGH MISSILE CHOICES, Defense News, July 29-Aug. 4, 2002. Japanese and U.S. officials a few years ago agreed to work together on technology for a 21-inch-diameter anti-missile interceptor, whose relatively large size was thought necessary to defeat ballistic missiles aimed at the Pacific nation. Now Washington wants to do the job with a smaller missile, an idea that could speed up the system’s deployment but gives Tokyo pause. Switching interceptors is one way the Pentagon’s quickened drive to build missile defenses is putting pressure on Japan, which soon must make crucial development and procurement decisions that will guide its participation in the effort. The Pentagon now believes the 13.5 –inch-diameter Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) may be adequate to defeat the threat that both nations once thought required a bigger, faster interceptor . . . The Japanese Defense Agency may decide as soon as this autumn, a Japanese defense official said . . . The U.S. decision to speed up deployment of a sea-based missile defense lays larger decisions at Tokyo’s feet than whether to join a research effort. Even as it helps research and develop missile defense technologies, Japan has not decided whether to deploy a missile shield . . . “If Japan wants to cooperate, then they need to start doing things like taking a wider view of the current research project which might include greater participation in the proof of principle tests. The Pentagon would like to see more funding for proper development for all of the components and fit it to a 13.5-inch missile.” [said a U.S. analyst familiar with the program]

EUROPEAN FIRMS TO COOPERATE WITH BOEING ON MISSILE DEFENSE, CDI. Boeing signed agreements with three European defense contractors during the recent Fainborough International Air Show 2002. Alenia Spazo, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), and BAE all will be cooperating with Boeing, the lead systems integrator for ground-based midcourse missile defense, on various missile defense projects. BAE however has a head start as it already has a security clearance arrangement with the Pentagon and can begin work fairly quickly on contracts. Previously, BAE had collaborated on the Theater High Altitude Area Defense's seeker. This tying of European jobs to the missile defense industry comes at the same time the Bush administration is sending teams to twelve European capitals to promote its missile defense program. Defense News, July 29 - August 4, 2002

TROUBLE BRIDGES REGIONAL CHASMS, The Australian, August 1, 2002. Secretly, quietly, Australia’s ties with ASEAN and the U.S. are becoming firmer. In the waters of South-East Asia, two ships approach each other, late at night. One belongs to Indonesia, the other to the U.S. Under cover of darkness, and unofficially, a suspected al-Qa’ida terrorist (not an Indonesian national) is handed over to the U.S. for questioning. This incident is just one of hundreds of examples of newly intense counter-terrorist co-operation between South-East Asia and the US, much of it occurring in secret. Canberra is deeply involved in this co-operation and, if managed correctly, it could help cement a new intimacy between Australia and South-East Asia. It is true that the events of September11 have not wiped away previous strategic issues. But they have given them a new context. For example, heard anything about missile defense lately? Remember when strategic panjandrums were telling us that Washington’s pursuit of missile defense would lead to renewed US-Russian bitterness, a collapse in US-China relations and all manner of other catastrophe? Instead, the reaction to September 11 has transformed great power relations, uniting them, for the time being at least, in the war on terror. The US has negotiated Russian acquiescence in its missile defense program, which is proceeding apace, while Beijing has gone quiet on the issue . . . These joint counter-terrorism efforts are right in principle, deliver important practical results and can make a real contribution to increased links between Australia and South-East Asia more generally. Much will go on in private, in the dark, but it is no less significant for that.

MDA ALLOWED SPENDING LOOPHOLE, CDI. Defense Week reports (July 29, 2002) that the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is taking advantage of a law initially designed to lure new cutting-edge firms into Pentagon projects. Under the "other transactions" category, nearly all regulations are waived, eliminating cost data certification and auditing requirements, among other reporting procedures. When the MDA was re-organized in January 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld allowed for it to use the "other transactions" category for all "basic, applied and advanced research." Because the agency is responsible for all missile defense development until the programs are ready for procurement, this gives the defense contractors involved an open rein. Companies benefiting from this include the nation's two largest defense contractors, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin - hardly the recipients intended by the 1989 law's authors.

MISSILE AGENCY SPENDS MILLIONS FREE FROM USUAL RULES, Space & Missile, August 1, 2002. Within the next decade, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency is expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in deals with America’s two largest defense contractors without imposing on the firms the usual auditing and accounting rules, according to officials and documents . . . The agency’s relaxation of accounting and other rules for its biggest contractors on the costly antimissile program comes as Wall Street reels from the fallout of “creative” accounting, lack of transparency and insufficient oversight in corporate America. Spending so much money on antimissile programs that don’t have to play by the same time-tested rules that apply to other programs could invite cost, schedule and performance problems in missile defense, many experts say . . .The antimissile agency, in a statement, said it has no plans to extend the other-transactions authority beyond the two national teams. The agency could not quantify the amount it would spend on these teams, because contract talks are underway. A spokesman said other transactions is an accepted Pentagon practice and added that the national team agreements “require the contractors to have government-approved accounting systems, maintain earned-value-management systems and provide monthly cost reports.”

SENATE DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE VOTES ON MISSILE DEFENSE FUNDING, CDI. The Senate's defense appropriations subcommittee approved of $7.8 billion for missile defense programs as part of the FY'03 defense bill but allowed for $814 million to be shifted to anti-terrorism programs. It made some changes in funding for various programs. The joint U.S.-Israel Arrow system came out ahead: it was given $10 million more for improving the Arrow system and an extra $70 million to start U.S. co-production of the Israeli missile used in Arrow. Other programs were not so fortunate. Space-Based Infrared Systems-High (SBIRS-High) lost $100 million in funding; sea-based midcourse, $40 million; sea-based boost phase intercept, $25 million; space-based interceptors' general account, $21.3 million; and space-based laser, $10 million. The full Senate Appropriations committee is expected to take up the FY'03 defense bill today, July 18.

OPINION/LETTERS

PATRIOT MISSILES ARE THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE, Washington Times, August 1, 2002.